http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/military/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/will-the-really-offended-people-please-stand-up/ If only Wikileaker Julian Assange was in the Government and could leak the actual footage of these mysterious focus groups that found Anzac Day was ‘divisive’ because of multiculturalism. It’s hard to imagine who, specifically, is planning to be offended by the World War I centenary commemorations.  Unless some dopey focus group leader who desperately needed something to put in the ‘possible issues’ column sketched some outrageous possibilities such as gory re-enactments of Australian soldiers killing Turks, or Vietnamese. According to today’s Daily Telegraph, the Federal Government commissioned research and focus group testing that found multiculturalism means commemorating the centenary of Anzac Day is a “double-edged sword” and a “potential area of divisiveness”. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/will-the-really-offended-people-please-stand-up/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/will-the-really-offended-people-please-stand-up/#item8093 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/ A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/#item8037 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sorry-sight-of-a-frat-house-under-the-microscope/ Setting aside any questions of consent, it is hard to imagine a more bizarre or unpalatable violation of privacy than discovering that a moment of intimacy with your partner has been secretly filmed and broadcast for the titillation of others. This is the key fact at the centre of the Australian Defence Force Academy “skype” scandal, where an 18-year-old girl, a cadet at the military academy, slept with a guy who had a computer video camera rigged up in his room, creating a virtual porno for the amusement of his mates. No-one is disputing that the incident occurred. Worse, no-one in defence seems to give much a damn about it either. In Australia this week we have witnessed one of the more pathetic displays by senior members of our military and their allies in politics and the press, where the issue now seems to be not whether the girl deserves some kind of redress for a life-altering breach of privacy, but whether the military boss at the centre of the original investigation deserves his own little apology for being unfairly grilled over his handling of the scandal. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sorry-sight-of-a-frat-house-under-the-microscope/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sorry-sight-of-a-frat-house-under-the-microscope/#item8025 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-lost-the-battle-for-hearts-and-minds/ The murder of 16 Afghan civilians by a lone US soldier in Afghanistan this week is a tragic incident, which destroys the fundamental principles upon which this population-centric war is being fought. This war is as much about winning the hearts and minds of the population as killing the enemy. If the Coalition forces and the Afghan Government cannot be seen to protect the population, then the only alternative is the Taliban.  Counterinsurgency is the military’s version of what our civil criminal and social justice systems do in areas riddled by crime, drugs and a cycle of inter-generational poverty. Whether it’s Afghanistan or the Bronx, the population is the prize and it is no-longer acceptable just to shoot the bad guys. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-lost-the-battle-for-hearts-and-minds/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-lost-the-battle-for-hearts-and-minds/#item7995 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/stephen-smith-the-minister-in-a-minefield/ It’s a pretty special set of circumstances when a tax-payer-funded body releases a series of reviews exposing decades of cultural problems, including 775 allegations of sexual assault, and the Minister is the one facing questions over why he won’t apologise for standing down one of the people in charge. Last night on the ABC’s 7.30 Defence Minister Stephen Smith was asked in numerous ways why he wouldn’t apologise to Australian Defence Academy Commandant Bruce Kafer, who has been reinstated this week, 11 months after being stood down over the so called “Skype” scandal. When the scandal broke, involving an 18-year-old woman cadet being filmed without her consent having sex, and the vision broadcast via the internet to some of her classmates, Smith went in pretty hard and fast. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/stephen-smith-the-minister-in-a-minefield/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/stephen-smith-the-minister-in-a-minefield/#item7951 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-ignore-the-insights-gained-in-the-heat-of-battle/ It has been almost 600 days since 28-year-old Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney from Brisbane was killed in action in Afghanistan. The new dad was shot in the upper body by a single enemy round during the Battle of Derapet in the Tangi Valley on August 24, 2010. Following the battle one of his close mates in the Mentoring Task Force wrote a detailed email in which he claimed that with better fire support from mortars, artillery and light armoured vehicles, Lance Corporal MacKinney might not have been killed. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-ignore-the-insights-gained-in-the-heat-of-battle/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-ignore-the-insights-gained-in-the-heat-of-battle/#item7670 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/War-is-hell-and-military-life-is-no-picnic/ The reader response to The Punch article, 12 January 2012, “Why have we abandoned our troops?” highlighted a deep misunderstanding of the central tenet of the article, and, more worryingly, a flawed knowledge of the actual conditions of service applicable in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Some of the more ill-informed myths about what entitlements our military men and women received were: • Tax free salaries – No (but there are some concessions when deployed to war zones). penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/War-is-hell-and-military-life-is-no-picnic/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/War-is-hell-and-military-life-is-no-picnic/#item7624 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/alls-not-fair-in-war/ In the film Balibo, five journalists paint an Australian flag and the word ‘Australia’ on the wall of their ‘safe’ house. They are then coldly executed by the invading Indonesians. They believed – naively, in retrospect - that their very Australianness and their civilian status as journalists would save them. Their brutal slaying outrages us, offends our sense of fairness – and shows that the concept of fairness is an odd sort of idea to have in the midst of carnage. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/alls-not-fair-in-war/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/alls-not-fair-in-war/#item7539 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/ There has been plenty of diplomatic semantics around the American presence in Darwin but many including the Chinese are still not satisfied. The United States has long wanted a permanent military base in northern Australia. But they are not stupid.  So when Australian officials conveyed that a fixed establishment would not be politically palatable here they saved us the embarrassment of having to say no in a high-level bilateral meeting if the request was made. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/#item7421 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Digging-up-fallen-diggers-is-the-ultimate-indignity/ As we approach the Centenary of World War I, we start to think about the tremendous sacrifice so many of our diggers made. It is unimaginable to think that over 60,000 young men died in Gallipoli and the Western Front. When you visit the battlefields of France and Belgium and the cemeteries and memorials you see countless numbers of white crosses honoring the fallen. Many of those crosses are for soldiers who are “Known Only to God”. At the various memorials such as VC Corner and Menin Gate the names of those who were missing in action are engraved in stone. The Australian Government’s official estimation is there are approximately 18,000 Diggers lying under the fields of France and Belgium. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Digging-up-fallen-diggers-is-the-ultimate-indignity/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Digging-up-fallen-diggers-is-the-ultimate-indignity/#item7224 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account.